The terrible Forsyth Co pound in NC continues to be terrible. The NC Department of Agriculture failed the facility on its March inspection and this month, fined the county $5200 for numerous violations of state laws. Among the violations outlined by the state:

Animals whose records contained no indication of serious illness or injury were being killed before the 72 hour mandatory holding period.

A cat with a leg wound was left for 2 days without veterinary care then killed.

Another cat with an injured leg was left without vet care for 2 days, then had instructions issued for vet care and was then immediately killed.

A dog with her uterus hanging out was left in a cage without veterinary treatment for nearly 3 full days before someone finally sent a photo to the vet to inquire if she needed any medical care.

A sick, one month old kitten whose records contained the notes “eyes possibly blind” and “cat can not eat on its own” was left without vet care to suffer in a cage until she finally died 3 days later.

An elderly dog who was barely able to move, exhibiting neurological symptoms, urinating in his bowl, vomiting and having diarrhea in his cage was scheduled for euthanasia 3 days after being surrendered. While handling the dog in preparation for the euthanasia, a staff member said she was bitten. The decision was then made to leave the suffering dog in a cage for an additional 10 day rabies hold with a plan to cut off his head and submit it for rabies testing. The dog was found dead in his cage 9 days into the hold. He never received any vet care.

A dog who was struggling to breathe and unable to move after being run over by a car was left without veterinary care to suffer for more than 24 hours before being killed. Another mangled dog was similarly neglected.

A nursing dam was seized for a 10 day bite quarantine along with her litter of 7 puppies. Pound staff killed the mother and all her puppies after 9 days. No owner surrender form or other records could be found for the puppies.

Tim Jennings, Forsyth County’s animal control director, said after reviewing the violation notice Monday, “It looks like we have some things we need to focus on, prioritize and deal with pretty quickly.”

[…]

“They’re outlining some serious issues, and we have to correct those problems,” Jennings said.

He said they strive to keep animals from suffering.

[County manager Dudley] Watts said the civil penalty “comes as an unfortunate surprise to us,” because the county has some years of solid inspections.

“We just haven’t had these kinds of violations emerge. … But we certainly want to make sure that we’re in compliance across all of these issues,” Watts said.

Everybody calm down. It’s not Eyes Possibly Blind kitten left in a cage to starve to death or Dog with Insides Falling Out left to suffer – it’s just issues. Plus, they’re striving. So there’s that.

I hate that the county had this unfortunate surprise. You know who else got an unfortunate surprise? That cat with the hurt leg who finally got to see a vet after 2 days at the pound but instead of getting treatment, the pound staff decided to give him death. Treatment sounds like work, amirite?

An attorney for the off-duty Montgomery Co deputy who bashed a dog’s brains in then adopted a different dog at the pound wrote a letter to the local paper to tell of his client’s uh, heroism.

The MCSO deputy, now identified as Keith Berger, says through his lawyer – and oh yes, I’m paraphrasing here – that he saw three female vols, one of them a teenager, in an enclosure with Rock, the 90 pound pitbull mix, another large pitbull mix and a tiny dog being eaten by the other two. The three hysterical women were yelling and flailing and attempting to break up the little dog buffet with sticks and a hose. Although the dogs were not behaving aggressively toward the vols, the deputy envisioned that the teen girl looked very chomp-worthy to Rock and decided to jump in and save the overemotional wimmins. Berger could have opened fire inside the enclosure, cause you know, yay guns, but he valiantly opted not to do so instead relying on his super manly strength. He “picked up a piece of ‘half rotten’ 2×4 and hit Rock on the head.” It was barely a tap, just enough to save the pygmy dog and the silly little girl and the world. An ACO then came in and broke up the fight between the two large dogs.

See. It was totally a situation where womenfolk got themselves into a fix and they were all going to die, probably. The deputy has a sworn duty to protect and to serve and just because he’s not on the clock doesn’t mean he’s going to stand by while fainting ladies put themselves in harm’s way. He gets all the credit for not shooting up the place and for his deft wielding of a toothpick to stop Rock from doing what he was not doing but totally could have, possibly, if you’ll only believe. You don’t have to thank him, just let him know when the medal ceremony is to be held.

Montgomery Co is continuing to investigate itself in the matter and the investigation is reportedly “moving along quickly.” And, not to give away the ending but:

“While this matter is still being thoroughly investigated, several accounts that had initially surfaced on social media regarding the incident have proven to be false,” District Attorney Brett Ligon said. “We will continue to follow every lead and witness; but as of yet, we have not received the necropsy report or the completed report from the detective assigned to the case.”

We don’t yet know what happened but we do know that several accounts which do not fit our narrative are wrong. We are being very thorough and waiting by the mailbox for the necropsy report which will confirm that Rock had Jelly Head Syndrome and even a love pat would have caused his skull to cave in which will prove that the deputy did him a favor actually. Medal ceremony to be announced forthwith.

So you have a job and get a paycheck but when it comes to actually doing your job – that’s optional, apparently. I wish someone would have mentioned this to me sooner!

Parish animal control workers recently refused a deputy’s order to pick up dogs in a cruelty case, according to the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office.

And in case anyone was thinking that maybe the animals weren’t in bad shape, wrong. Nine dogs and an unknown number of cats were living with a woman in a mobile home. One dog had a broken back and was paralyzed, another had large tumors all over the belly, and a third appeared to have had the area from his inside thigh to his hip “cut by a filet knife.” The stench of urine and feces inside the home was overwhelming. The woman received a misdemeanor summons for animal cruelty and failing to provide veterinary care.

“Deputy [Philip] Lint then contacted the Livingston Parish Animal Control via phone and advised (the woman who answered) of the current situation and the condition of two dogs,” according to the deputy’s report. “Deputy Lint was advised by that female that it is the responsibility of the dog owner to ensure the dogs are taken to the veterinarian to get proper treatment. The dogs were left on the scene.”

Take your filleted dog and shove it, I guess. Of course this sort of blatant dereliction of duty does not occur without enablers in high places:

Parish President Layton Ricks said his employees have the authority to ignore a deputy’s order to rescue if there is reason to believe that the person cited had previously tried to give the animals up.

Right. That makes sense. To someone, in some sphere of reality, presumably. I mean not on this earth in these four, puny dimensions obviously but somewhere, out there.

Ricks said animal control assistant Desiree Green had previously received a call from a woman she believed to be the same person cited April 2 for cruelty. According to Ricks, the caller asked for help with dogs that needed to be put down because she did not have the money to pay a veterinarian.

When the call came in from Deputy Lint, Green “knew this lady was trying to get the dogs put down,” Ricks said.

Ricks said he supported Green’s decision to leave the dogs where they were. The parish cannot afford to euthanize all the dogs that are too sick or too badly injured to recover, Ricks said.

I admire Green’s mind reading ability that she used to determine the lady who asked for help with her dogs previously and was turned away is the same lady who was clever enough to get herself charged with crimes by the deputy as a workaround. That should sound excellent on the witness stand.

Just business as usual in Livingston Parish:

Members of the now defunct Animal Control Board, or Committee, said the policy requiring a citation frustrated subdivision residents trying to cope with abandoned dogs.

Residents are “tired of watching dogs in bad shape, emaciated and suffering. People in neighborhoods are watching them die,” committee member Randy Stegall said in 2013. “If we hold dogs in the shelter until they are adopted, then it will be a ‘no kill’ shelter. We can’t do that. Too many animals are out there suffering.”

Heaven forfend we have a no kill shelter. There are too many suffering animals out there, holding out hope that some compassionate person will help them. We wouldn’t want to be one of those people. Less hope, more killing, rah rah rah. I wonder why they dismantled the committee.

“If we’re offering animal control, then people should be able to rescue a dog and take it to the shelter,” Board member Phillip Woods said at a November 2013 meeting.

Uh, please define “rescue”?

So while the taxpayers are paying their public servants to jack each other off, can anyone help these dogs? Because they need help. I’m willing to help in any way I can. If you are local and can offer assistance, tell us what you need.

A man thought to be a potential adopter visited the Brookhaven Animal Rescue League in Mississippi on Friday, asked to see the cats, then allegedly beat one to a pulp before leaving. The guy was unsupervised as all the staff and vols at the private shelter were chasing a loose dog. The three year old cat, called Tilly, was found in an open cage, battered and bloody, clinging to life. She died later at a vet’s office.

The area where Tilly was found is described as a colony room so it sounds as if she was tortured in view of other cats. There was blood spatter on the walls and a “plastic stick” was in pieces. The man apparently beat Tilly until his weapon fell apart then stomped on her.

Jody Cothron has been charged with misdemeanor animal cruelty in connection with the case. In Mississippi, nearly all animal cruelty offenses are misdemeanors. Police have obtained surveillance video from the shelter.

I totally get that there was an emergency at the shelter because a dog had gotten loose. I get that everyone was looking out for the dog’s well being by chasing him around and leaving the guy in the cat colony room unsupervised. But come on people, you need to watch your pets and not leave them alone with strangers.

If a guy walks into a daycare and says he’s interested in looking around because he might want to enroll his kid, you don’t show him into the infant room and leave him alone – even if there’s an emergency. Emergencies happen. They need to be handled in such a way that no one’s safety is compromised.

If it was absolutely an all-hands-on-deck situation that required everyone in the place to help, the first thing that needed to happen was for someone to quickly explain to the visitor that he would need to wait in his car until the dog was captured and then to make sure the guy was out of there. Because apparently unsupervised adopters beating shelter pets is a thing now. FFS.

Montgomery Co in Texas is investigating itself to determine how one of its off duty sheriff’s deputies visited the county shelter to adopt a dog and ended up allegedly beating three dogs with a two-by-four in the back before having his adoption processed out front. (You probably want to go back and re-read that so I’ll pause for a moment here.)

The Courier of Montgomery Co reports that on Saturday, the MCSO deputy and his family were in the shelter’s exercise area with three dogs, including a friendly male pitbull mix named Rock who was reportedly a staff favorite. There was apparently no shelter staff supervising the family. Not saying the guy got special treatment because he was a sheriff’s deputy but, unless the staff is totally lax with everyone who comes to visit, it seems like a possibility.

When the three dogs started fighting, the deputy allegedly picked up a board and began beating the dogs. Rock apparently got it in the head and was left with neurological damage so severe that he had to be euthanized. The other two dogs are described as “seriously injured” but the county won’t say what their status is. They’re probably fine, you know.

After the bloodshed, the deputy apparently went up front and got the adoption paperwork processed and took home his new pet. Not saying the guy got special treatment because he was a sheriff’s deputy but, unless shelter policy states adopters can’t be denied for any reason including leaving a trail of blood from the exercise area to the adoption desk, it seems like a possibility.

Shelter director Dr. Todd Hayden told the Courier he didn’t know why three dogs were in the exercise area together, where the two-by-four came from or who Rock was. And:

“We are working with the DA and the dog is going to Texas A&M tomorrow (Monday) for a necropsy.”

Right. Because maybe Rock had heartworms or hookworms or earthworms or any other possible thing that his death could be pinned on besides having his skull cracked by a sheriff’s deputy. Not saying the guy is getting special treatment because he is a sheriff’s deputy – well, actually.

As far as how the guy’s adoption was processed and he was given a dog to take home, Hayden offered this:

He said the front desk personnel was unaware of the situation unfolding at the back of the shelter.

Gee, maybe they need to institute an Adopter Carnage Alert system to take care of this little loophole. Or at least a quick visual inspection to determine the adopter isn’t covered in flecks of gray matter and blood.

Anyway, don’t criticize. Until the stupid public spays and neuters their pets, I guess we just have to accept. I can’t wait to find out that Rock had Jelly Head Syndrome or a bum ticker or whatever cause of death that will not be attributable to being Negan’d with a two-by-four.